The California State Parks system has plans and funds to develop the Tesla wilderness southeast of Livermore for off-road vehicles, in a historic region where two mining boomtowns once thrived.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

The California State Parks system has plans and funds to develop...

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Off-roading has marked the hills in the existing Carnegie vehicular recreation area adjacent to the Tesla site.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Off-roading has marked the hills in the existing Carnegie vehicular...

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A sign of the coal mining that once boomed in the Tesla region runs through what's now a state-owned wilderness area that is home to a host of species, including mountain lions, snakes, hawks and tule elks.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

A sign of the coal mining that once boomed in the Tesla region runs...

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Celeste Garamendi of Friends of Tesla Park stands at one of the gates closing off the land that the state plans to use for an off road vehicle park in Livermore, Calif., Thursday, October 18, 2012. The group is hoping the land will be preserved instead.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Celeste Garamendi of Friends of Tesla Park stands at one of the...

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Celeste Garamendi of Friends of Tesla Park points out the land that the state plans to use for an off road vehicle park in Livermore, Calif., Thursday, October 18, 2012. The group is hoping the land will be preserved instead.

Photo: Sarah Rice, Special To The Chronicle

Celeste Garamendi of Friends of Tesla Park points out the land that...

State park officials plan to turn a swath of hills southeast of Livermore - regarded by conservationists as historic and ecologically sensitive - into a motorcycle park, even as off-road vehicle use has declined and the state struggles to keep traditional parks open.

The state is midway through the planning process to open the 3,400-acre Tesla area between Livermore and Tracy for off-road use by motorcycles, ATVs and other vehicles. The parcel would be a significant expansion of the adjacent Carnegie State Vehicular Recreational Area.

The move by the state has angered conservationists but given hope to off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

"I can't imagine how we as a state can allow this area to be destroyed, just as the Carnegie area has been destroyed," said Celeste Garamendi, sister of Rep. John Garamendi. Her husband's family has run a cattle ranch near the Tesla area for more than 100 years.

"I live in this area. I work in this area," she said. "I know how special and unique this area is."

Off-road enthusiasts say that having places to ride is essential to their activity and that there are few places left to build motorcycle parks.

"There's fewer and fewer places to ride. Environmentalists have the upper hand, and we know that," he said. "No one likes to recreate on screwed-up land. But the Tesla park will be something everyone can be proud of."

Rugged grassland

Tesla is a steep, rugged grassland in the southeast reaches of the hills between Livermore and Tracy. It's been a gathering point for American Indians, a critical pass for Spanish explorers, a cattle ranch and the site of a rowdy mining town.

These days it's fenced off to the public as the state completes its environmental impact report on the project. But inside the fence, it's home to mountain lions, snakes, hawks and tule elk, forests of native oaks and seasonal creeks.

It's also part of an open-space corridor connected by private ranches, federal land and regional parks stretching from Mount Diablo to Sunol. Its loss would be devastating for open-space users and wildlife, including several endangered species reported to live in the area, environmentalists and others said.

"You turn on the motor of an ATV or off-road motorcycle and the impacts last in perpetuity," said John Icanberry, a retired biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service who lives in the region, known as the Tri-Valley area. "It splinters the landscape. It cuts the habitat into pieces."

The effects of off-road vehicles are extreme, he said. They crush underground animal burrows, flatten vegetation and disrupt wildlife. But the most harmful element is the soil destruction, leading to erosion and greatly diminished water and air quality. A landscape could take centuries to recover, he said.

A 2007 study by the U.S. Geological Survey described the effects of off-highway vehicles on soil, watersheds and habitats as "diverse and potentially profound."

The Carnegie park is a stark example. The areas where riders can veer off trails are barren, dusty and devoid of vegetation.

Randy Caldera, acting superintendent of Carnegie, promised that Tesla would be better maintained.

"The thing that's killing us is that in 1980 when Carnegie opened, they basically opened the gates and let motorcycles in," he said. "That's not going to happen at Tesla. It's not going to be a free-for-all. The question is, how do we convince the environmental community of that?"

Exact plans for the Tesla property have not yet been determined, but Caldera said Tesla's sensitive historic and natural areas would be protected.

Tesla and Carnegie are the names of mining towns that thrived in the hills in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The town of Tesla, like the car, was named after the electrical engineer who helped invent the alternating current. Carnegie was named after the brick factory that dominated the town.

But long before the area was filled with miners and their families, it was a hub for Native Americans and the Spanish. For the Ohlone and other tribes, the Tesla area was a quick route between the Central Valley and the Bay Area, easier than the Altamont Pass just to the north, according to the Livermore Heritage Guild.

The area also caught the attention of the Spanish. The Anza expedition of 1776, a group of about 200 Spanish soldiers and families who set out to explore and settle in California, traveled through the Tesla area as it made its way through the East Bay and beyond. The Anza Trail, which is now part of the National Park Service, passes through the Tesla property. An old stagecoach road does as well.

Coal boom

In the late 1800s, coal was discovered in the hills, and boomtowns sprouted overnight. At its peak, 1,500 people called the Tesla area home, more than lived in Livermore at the time, according to Anne Homan, Livermore's city historian.

But in the 1910s, the mining companies went bust, and that was the end of Tesla. All that remains are a few building foundations, mine tunnels and piles of tailings.

For the next eight decades, Tesla was used for grazing cattle and pretty much reverted to its natural state.

Enter the California State Parks, which purchased the property in 1998 in hopes of expanding the Carnegie motorcycle park.

That plan has endured despite declining usage of Carnegie. According to a 2011 State Parks report, the motorcycle park attracted 144,000 visitors in 2003, 95,600 in 2007 and 92,000 in 2008. A busy weekend now brings in between 900 to 1,000 people, Caldera said.

By comparison, the demand for hiking and picnicking appears to be increasing. Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve near Antioch, for example, attracted about twice as many people as Carnegie last year. That park offers hiking trails, picnic areas and a visitor center, but no off-road vehicle use.

State parks officials' rationale for expanding Carnegie is that the California Public Resource Code mandates the expansion of the state's off-road recreational facilities. Money for the expansion is coming from the off-road division's own special fund, which draws its revenue from off-road park entrance fees, surcharges paid by off-road vehicle owners and other sources. In 2012-13, that fund contained about $67 million.

Those funds can legally be used only for off-road parks and recreation, such as the expansion of Carnegie, even though the parks department's budget problems have threatened other parks with closure. Officials were able to keep parks open with the help of private donations.

Hundreds of off-road advocates from around the country have pressured the state to move forward with the Tesla plan, saying the only state off-road vehicle park in the Bay Area is in desperate need of expansion as the population grows and the public's interest in extreme sports increases.

"It's a beautiful trail-ride area," said Amy Granat, executive director of the California Off-Road Vehicle Association. "It's not exactly pristine. I wouldn't compare it to Yosemite. It's often hot, dusty, windy - it's the perfect place to put a motorcycle park."

Minimizing impact

Fouts of the American Motorcycle Association says that with a larger park like Tesla, motorcyclists will be spread over a broader area, thereby minimizing the overall impact. The park will also be heavily regulated to prevent damage to historic or especially sensitive areas, and riders will stay on the trails, he said.

Environmentalists, meanwhile, would like to see Tesla preserved for hikers and wildlife. Ideally, they say, the Tesla property would come under the purview of the East Bay Regional Park District, which already owns several large parcels in the area.

The district offered in 2008 to buy Tesla outright or manage it for the state. That didn't sit well with the state's Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission, which fired off a letter Oct. 15 essentially telling the park district to mind its own business.

Commission Chairman Paul Slavik said the park district appeared to be "attempting to decide the future of an existing park within the California State Park system."

Bob Doyle, the East Bay parks director, said Tesla would be a natural fit for the district, which is seeking to protect ridgetops throughout the East Bay.

"But we have no interest in fighting the state over it," he said. "If the state decides to do something else with the land, then sure, we'd like to talk to them."

The state's environmental impact report is expected to be completed by the end of 2013, ultimately facing approval by the Off-Highway Vehicle Commission.

"If all goes well, we hope to roll out something to the public next year," Caldera said.

Public comment

To comment on the state's environmental impact report on the proposed motorcycle park at Tesla, southeast of Livermore, go to carnegiegeneralplan.com.